Author: admincatsg

Well, the cold seems to have finally moved off of the area. But we had some brutal cold. We had cold that froze plants, yes I lost quite a few of my potted plants. Such is life. I’m sure I’m not the only one that lost plants. Even now, there are still small patches of ice left around. Most of the the patches are in area that are in shade or in the corners of roof lines. So, not much of it left.

Even after we began warming you could find ice spots in the shaded areas of the walk paths. It could make for some interesting walks. Since some areas are shady most or all of the day, due to trees on both sides. Some of those areas stayed wet, and or icy depending. It actually took quite a few days for the ice to finally melt and the water to dry out.

But here we are on the other side of the cold for us, we are finally warming up. And by warming up I am talking about it was mid 60’s today, and we’re due to make high 70’s with possible 80’s later this week. But we don’t really have any rain in the forecast.

Well, we may have lucked out with the cold leaving us, but other parts of the US have not. Part of the south, including areas like New Orleans. New Orleans got below freezing. Parts of Florida got so cold iguanas had to be rescued. Some areas of Tennessee have been without power because of the cold, the snow, accidents, and power lines down. Even North Carolina got snow, about 18 inches of snow.

But as I said, here in central Texas we are warming up. Where I have lost quite a few potted plants, I am sure that a lot of garden businesses will be more than happy to help replenish our gardens with new plants. Right now they haven’t begun replenishing their stock, so there’s not much available to buy, but I’m sure that will change quickly.

One other thing about the warm up, I’m sure we will return to allergy season. We’ve had just what cedar likes, a good cold, hard freeze, days of below freezing weather, and now we are on track for 70’s and 80’s. I’m sure cedar season will be coming in hard and heavy.

Yes, it’s cold. Yes, we got sleet, graupel, and a smear of snow. But we got lucky, no freezing rain.

We did on the other hand get some rain, 2.5 inches just before the cold hit.

Yup, we should have emptied the rain gauge before the cold hit. We may need to replace the rain gauge.

We have ice on the roads, and a weekend where it was Just. Stay. In!

This is not what you want to be driving on. Here in central Texas, they may de-ice major roads, but they are not going to bother with side roads. We just don’t have the resources.

Today, Monday we are warming. Right now its just barely above freezing, 33 degrees, and roads are melting. But tonight we are due for more cold, like 16 degrees cold. Anything wet will refreeze again. But while the sun is up, things will get better.

This week will not be a great weather week. Where today will hopefully warm to 36, then fall to 15, tomorrow we will be another warm day, but again the night will be below freezing.

Actually, the rest of the week will be warming day, but below freezing nights. Thursday the nights are due to hit freezing, but Friday night is back down to 25. Next week, in February, we should return to 50-60 degree days and nights above freezing.

My dog is not happy with the weather. He doesn’t like the cold. The birds have been feeding heavily from the feeders. I even gave them additional feed in shallow saucers, actually they were plant saucers I put a brick in to weigh down.

We will see how the rest of the week plays out. Will we get warm, will the nights be that cold? Will next week actually stay warm? Who know.

Well at around 1:30AM a storm began coming in. We had thunder and lightning. This morning we woke up to 34 degrees. That was the same temperature we had at 3:30AM, I had woken up and checked the weather station.

It’s been a slow drop in temperature since. It’s now 12:30PM, just half past noon and the temperature is down to 26. It’s just been a slow slide down.

One thing we did this morning was put more bird seed out. We have a large feeder, on a two hook shepherds hook. It’s situated so we can see it from the dining/eating area of the house. We also have two smaller dish type feeds on railings. This morning I added seed to the two smaller dishes, and partially filled a plant pot saucer with seed, it has a low lip and is about 10″ in diameter (right now with a brick in the middle). I put it on the floor of the patio, again situated so we can easily watch it.

Even though we do have squirrels, right now with the cold we have a lot of birds outside on the feeders. The patio is covered, probably about 11×10 feet squarish. My dogs small water bowl currently has a small amount of water in it. Hopefully it doesn’t freeze over, but there’s not much water in it.

We are currently forecast for freezing rain, ice (could be 1/4-1/2 inch), for the weekend. Basically, if you don’t have to go outside, don’t. Don’t go out for a drive, put a coat and maybe booties on your dog before walking, cover your plants, pipes, etc. Right now I even have water dripping in a bathroom so I don’t have to worry about it later. It’s done. Call me paranoid, I’m okay with that. I’ve been called a Girl Scout. I’ll wear that badge proudly if it keeps me from getting house damage, or other winter problems.

One concern I do have is that this weather has as I recall usually shown up in February. If I’m right about that, it’s a bit early. So will we have more cold weather this year? Will we have more coming in February? Is it a long winter ahead? Is this going to be it, and we’re done with winter weather here in Central Texas?

Who knows?

It’s now January 22, 2026. Texas weather is really something to behold. We’ve had interesting, to say the least, weather. We’ve had warm, not much rain, weather. Many days have been warm, then we would have a short lived cold night. And we have had cold nights, as around freezing nights. But then it warms back up. In many ways it’s even been pleasant.

All that comes to an end this weekend. It’s now Thursday and all we know is we have Winter Weather Warnings. When exactly it will hit is the only question. As of right now they are saying cold wind chills, as low at 5 degrees below zero possible in isolated areas. Most of the rest of us need to be prepared for single digit wind chills.

In addition we are looking at possible/probable freezing rain. Freezing rain is when the moisture (rain) is supercooled. When it hits a surface, tree limbs, cars, roads, etc. it freezes on contact.

As for our temperatures, tonight is a low of 56. It hardly seems likely to get that cold. But tomorrow Friday the day time should hit mid 60’s, maybe 68, but the night time will drop down to around freezing, think 35 or 36 but maybe as low as freezing. In addition, we may expect rain. That should make for fun weather and road conditions. Saturday the temperature continues to fall. The high Saturday may be low 40’s but could be down to just above freezing, the the night time around 20. Yes, that is well below freezing. Saturday is snow, ice, freezing rain change. Then comes Sunday. Sunday we look at a high of just below freezing, think 31, and a low of 16 or thereabout. Hello cold. You had best prepare you house for the cold, and they do mean cold.

Monday the daytime high’s climb above freezing to 38, but we can still expect lows of 19 but hopefully a bit above that. By Tuesday we will be out of cold. We will have daytime highs of 50, and evening lows of just above freezing.

How will it all play out? We don’t know. We’ll know when it happens. As of right now we’ve done out best to get this house winterized and ready for this weather event.

Sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve posted. Actually, its been a couple of months. A lot has happened and I’ve had some issues, but I’m back at it. So here we go.

It’s now early November. Our weather has been okay for central Texas weather. We’ve had hot weather, expected, and gardening is always a challenge during the heat of summer.

It’s now early November and we’ve still had some hot weather. By hot we’ve had some record temperatures this late in the year. But true to Texas weather we are hitting 90 degrees today, tomorrow just barely cooler at about 85. Yet Monday we will drop to 61. Yes, we will have a good 25 degree drop in one day. This time when they say a cold front, they mean it. I put it that way since we had a cold front but the temperature didn’t have much more than about 10 degree drop. That’s still nice, but not that much of a drop.

One thing that is a learning experience is the way the sun has moved throughout the year. Since this is a new house for me, I purchased it earlier this year so I haven’t yet made one year here yet, I am still learning the movement of the sun here. Now has that been a learning experience?? YES! For instance I had put up some solar lights in the back yard for taking my “monster” (dog) out at night. Yet some areas where I put those solar light earlier this year, now don’t get enough sunlight during the day for the lights to work at night. That was surprising. I’ve found those changes both in the front yard and the back yard.

Now I didn’t set up a full actual garden or beds. I used just pots this year. As I said, this is my first year at this house. I found that some pots, same size, same soil, same seeds, did better in some areas of the garden that in others. Even though I used the same soil throughout my garden, I noticed some pots dried out faster than others. Now I don’t tend to use clay pots, its just a personal preference. I don’t use clay pots because I find in the Texas summer heat the pots dried them out too quickly. That is why I use a commercial potting soil, so I know that it includes a consistent amount of soil additives, especially for water retention. But even with that attempt at consistency, I noticed significant differences in areas of my garden.

In particular I had two bean pots. I used the same seeds, from the same package. One pot was close to the fence in the back. The other pot was closer to the house. Both got the same amount of sun, basically. Both also got pretty much the same amount of watering, by hand. Surprising the pot closer to the house dried out faster than the pot by the back fence. It’s now November and the pot that was out by the fence is still green, and alive. That surprised me as it didn’t always get the attention the pot by the house got.

Now I didn’t take as good care of the pots as one might think. I was gone on a trip, gone a good two weeks. I didn’t get everything watered as well as hoped. And of course, when you’re gone you can’t always foresee how the weather might changed from what was forecast. Such is life and gardening.

Solar lights I had out front, lighting the front door went from working well to not working. This is all part of learning a new house. I haven’t changed the watering system to include drip watering. Here where I live we go onto water restrictions. Those restrictions tell us what days, and what times of the day we can water. Watering outside those time can result in a notice, or even a fine. Part of the time, we had been restricted to two days a week watering, and some areas were restricted to one day a week watering.

DELAY:

It’s now Sunday morning. And yes, the temperature has dropped. Our high of 93 on Friday is now a high of 66 today. I do believe we may have our first cold snap tonight.

It’s been almost a week. The death toll has reach 132 with 160 unaccounted for per NBC news today. Some people have miraculously survived. One lady was found 20 miles downstream clinging to a tree. But by now, it is I think more recovery than rescue.

More rain keeps arriving. Some small areas, some larger. As I think I posted a couple of days ago, Killeen got hit with about 8 inches of rain one morning. Since then we’ve had both San Saba River flooding, and the Lampasas River flood in Kempner.. When will it end, I have no idea. Today we have 0.90 inches of rain here at the house. It started as a light sprinkle, then a couple of short downpours. By early afternoon it had stopped. But this has been summer this year here in Central Texas.

Lake Travis is 70% full. Lake Georgetown is at 100%. Lake Austin is 95% full. Lake Buchanan is 88% full. Still House is also 100% full. At least all this rain has raised our lakes. But we probably need a break from the rain. Just a few days in between rains allows some chance to clear things out, And I admit it is weird watching helicopters flying overhead following the San Gabriel river. I’m sure they are still looking for debris, problems, erosion, etc.

But when will it end?

This morning a friend told me Killeen, a town 30 miles away, got 8 inches of rain in a couple of hours. It’s flooding. The rain is not over yet.

As of now, the death toll is still rising. One report says over 100. Because it was July 4th weekend, I unfortunately think there will be more bodies found. I’m sure those in RVs, tents, camping, driving by, etc. got caught and nobody may know they are missing yet. Earlier today I walked out the front yard because I could hear a helicopter, not a normal sound here. Well, they were flying low and over the San Gabriel River down the street here. I’m sure they were checking for damage, debris and “other things”. There is no nice way to say they are looking for bodies.

The Carolina’s got hit by a hurricane, Chantal. I feel sorry that their worries have been overshadowed by Texas. They deserve awareness for what they are going thru too.

Oh, and we got another inch of rain, just over actually, yesterday.

It is a sad day in Texas. We have had floods from Kerrville, to Georgetown, and I believe down to San Antonio. As of now its 59 dead, and at least 11 missing just in Kerr County. Roads have been washed out, bridges gone, houses washed away. We’ve had rain for 3 days. Here at the house as previously reported we’ve had about 2.5 inches the first two days.

Yesterday we got an additional 3.26 inches of rain. Our creek here by the house, part of the San Gabriel river was almost up to houses and backyards. We walked down near a walk path near the creek where Linus gets walked. No chance of taking the walk path, it was under water. Other areas along the San Gabriel were also hit – three apartment complexes were evacuated earlier in the day. A couple of RV parks near the river got flooded, I don’t know if people died in those.

Being that it was July 4th weekend, people were out partying, taking long weekend vacations. I’m sure the numbers will change. The storm here was not loud, very little thunder, not a lot of lightning. So it was just rain coming down. It was nothing but a stalled rain system. Some areas, especially Kerrville area did get 18 inches of rain. The news last night also said a couple of other areas also saw significant rainfall.

Last night, and today most of those swollen rivers are receding. Here by the house, late around 8pm the creek had lowered but not down to its normal level. We did walk Linus on the walk path, but you could still see the creek from there, something you cannot normally do.

Well yesterday, July 3 we got rain. Not a lot but about 0.88 inches last I saw. But today, we have had rain almost all day. As of right now (6:30pm) we have 1.71 here in the back yard. That’s not bad really. Some areas, especially Mason and Kerrville have seen 10-18″ of rain. Some are calling it historic rain.

The rain came in and just sat over the area. There is flooding along some of the rivers. People are missing from some of the camps, and RV parks in the area. The Guadalupe River rose from nothing at midnight to 29 feet by 4am according to news.

There is/was a girls camp in the Kerrville area that was hit by the water. There are both dead and missing from the storm. Right now it’s 13 dead and 20 missing. I’m sure those numbers will change.

Yet, it is also warm to hot. We’ve been in the 90’s. Today, even with rain its still been 77-79, with a high of 81 here in Georgetown. It’s not a great weekend. Consequently, with all this rain, Independence Day events have been canceled. It’s just a decision that had to be made. And with the rain we’ve had, it’s probably for the best.

This coming week we will be in the high 90’s, and by the end of the week we are looking at triple digits. It’s left us hot, humid, clammy, muggy, sticky, and hard to breathe.

Will August be triple digits?